Happy, Happy, Happy

The beauty of being part of a large work force is that every week, or at least every month, someone has a birthday, or retires, or gets a new intern in their department. Of course announcing holidays, birthdays and retirement parties or new interns coming on board is like chumming the waters for the really dedicated pranksters.

Happy Retirement: The best pranks involve everyone but the victim. One of the best-kept pranks I ever heard about was one that even the boss was in on. The prankee was working as a bookkeeper at her local library. She loved her job and thought her co-workers loved her — right up until her last day. She waited for someone to tell her when and where her farewell party would be, but no one said a word. She was scheduled to work until 4 p.m. that day, but at noon her boss went up to her desk, shook her hand and told her because it was her last day she could take off early. She wanted to sob she was so sad. No party?! As she walked to her car a co-worker ran out and yelled at her, “You’ve got a phone call!” She returned to take it and walked into her surprise party!

Happy Birthday to You! I knew a guy who managed a division of a large software company that operated out of two different buildings in the same town. One day, at around lunchtime, he got a call from the other building. The secretary told him that an employee he had just fired a few days earlier had returned to the offices with his attorney and was going through the office files, etc. The guy raced over to the other side of town, sprinted into the conference room that the two men were supposedly in, only to find that the entire office had arranged for a surprise birthday. If it had been me I don’t know if I’d have been more relieved or angry, but what a great prank eh?

Computer Pranks

Auto Correct: If you’re computer savvy, consider getting into your co-workers computer and changing his Auto Text in Microsoft Word. Replace his name with something silly. For example, change his name from “John Doe,” to His Royal Highness. Every time he types his name, the auto correct feature will automatically change it. This is done by going into Word/Insert/auto text/auto correct. Yeah, it’s really fun!

DVORAK? You can also change their keyboard to Dvorak. At first they think they’re mistyping but then they have no idea what is going on, or how to fix it. Get your best results by targeting non-geeks who think they’ve broken their computer or downloaded a virus.

Screen Shot: Take a screen grab of someone’s entire desktop and then open the image full screen. They won’t be able to figure out why nothing’s clickable.

Here are the instructions:For Mac’s: Command/Shift/4, then click and drag to select entire screen. The image will be saved to the desktop as a “ping” file.

ABC’s: Only have a few minutes? A few years ago, for April Fool’s day, someone I know, ahem, popped the key caps off of a colleague’s keyboard and put them back on – in alphabetical order.

NSFW (Not Safe For Work)

There are some in every crowd. Risqué can get you in trouble in some work places, but if yours is not one of those places nothing quite says totally hysterically funny, or embarrassing and shocking, like a hired stripper. I know of one company who found out their boss was a strip club fan so his employees hired a stripper to pose as an art director for a job interview. The employees gave the stripper a crash course in design lingo and a portfolio of work to show him. As he looked at her portfolio, she said, “I’d do anything for this job!” Then, she began to strip. He freaked out a bit and said, “No, no, that’s okay!” But, she continued undressing. When she was practically in his lap, his employees started laughing and cued him into the joke.

Lady Godiva: At least the art director stripper showed up in clothes. Not all of them do. There’s the story about the employees who hired a woman to dress in a skin colored body suit, a la “Lady Godiva” to help their boss celebrate his birthday (birthday, birthday suit…get it?) She rode into the factory on the back of a horse with long flowing blonde hair and nothing much else except the skin colored suit. From a distance she totally looked naked. She got enough attention while riding around the streets and factory that someone called the media and the story made it onto the local news. Go figure.

Someone Call a Carpenter? Men aren’t the only ones getting pranked by strippers. At a corporate meeting a contractor, a very handsome, very studly dude complete with hardhat, square chiseled jaw and tool belt showed up at the office. I know what you’re thinking but no, in spite of the incredible resemblance, it was not me. He knocked on the door of the conference room and asked for the manager. She later said her heart sank–because she thought there had been yet another building maintenance crisis. She didn’t worry about that for long. He approached her with all his tools swinging and began gyrating in front of her. Hello. I won’t go into graphic detail because I’m already blushing, but let’s just say there’s a reason he was a much sought after Chippendale dancer in the evenings.

You Rang? Not every one has to bring a stripper on the premises. Another prank I heard about was from an audit firm. The secretary’s decided to ‘prank’ their boss. The boss’s personal assistant called one of the local houses of let’s say, “ill-repute” and before anyone answered, she connected to the boss’ direct line. The laughs came when the lady on the other end of the line was adamant that HE was the one who called her! All the secretaries’ heard was a very loud, “Lady, get your facts straight!”

Depth Charge: One of the longest running pranks I’ve heard is from someone who intercepted a box of a co-worker’s new business cards. He wrote mortifying messages on the back of a few of the cards, like “I wear a pink thong. Want to see it?” and “Are you into hot guys like me?” and then stuck the cards back in the box. He then waited for the card to be passed to the right, but unsuspecting client. A few weeks later, the prankee unknowingly slid one of his newly personalized business cards across the table to his prospective client. The client picked the card up, noticing and reading the handwritten message on the back. It happened to be, “I wear a hot pink thong. Want to see it?” Twenty years later, this guy is still compulsively checking the back of every business card before it leaves his hand.